The effect of mobile phone use at night on the sleep of pre-adolescent (8-11 year), early adolescent (12-14 year) and late adolescent (15-18 year) children: A study of 252,195 Australian children

Abstract

Objectives: To examine whether the association previously reported between mobile phone use at night and poor sleep in adolescents also generalizes to pre-adolescent children.

Design: Cross sectional.

Setting: Database provided by Resilient Youth Australia Pty Ltd.

Participants: Survey completed by 84,915 pre-adolescent (8-11 years), 99,680 early adolescent (12-14 years) and 67,600 late adolescent Australian children (15-18 years).

Measurement: Children were asked how frequently they obtained 8 hours of sleep on most nights and if they used their mobile phone at night to send and receive messages between 10 PM and 6 AM. Binary logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between mobile phone use at night and sleeping 8h or more on most nights with gender, socioeconomic status and year of study (2014-2018) as covariates.

Results: For all age cohorts including pre-adolescent children, mobile phone use at night was associated with lower odds of obtaining 8 hours of sleep on most nights.

Conclusion: The present findings confirm that the association between mobile phone use at night and poor sleep previously reported in adolescent children also generalises to pre-adolescent children. Given the increased uptake of smartphone devices in ever younger children the findings point to the need to provide parents, schools and communities with resources to promote child sleep hygiene and media use at bedtime.

Keywords: Adolescent; Cell phone; Child; Gender; Sleep.